Review: Famous Japanese Swordsmen of
the Two Courts Period

It was with great interest that I
picked up the book in question to do this review, after all I love
anything military, political, historical, Japanese, and related to
the martial arts, specifically the sword arts. The book promised all
of the above.

The title of a book should give some
intent, some relevance to the content of the pages held within.
“Famous Japanese Swordsmen…” should tell the reader that once
he/she cracks open the binding and gazes upon the pages held within,
one will learn of the lives, the triumphs, the loss, and the lessons
endured and learned by Famous Japanese Swordsmen of the period in
question.

This particular book in the series
deals specifically with two famous Japanese Swordsmen, Nenami Okuyama
Jion and Chujo Hyogo No Kami.

The book was well written, deeply,
deeply researched, resulting in an incredibly informative manuscript
about the time of these two great gentlemen and the preceding three
centuries or so. Therein lays my issue with this book, when I pick up
a book titled “Famous Japanese swordsmen”, I expect the bulk of
the writing to be about just that, the people in question and their
lives, not a rundown of the preceding three centuries of history that
led up to the people in question. I didn’t want 90% of my book to
be about history, and 10% specifically about the swordsmen. Yes you
must give some background as to the time and place in history, but
the percentages should be reversed.

To learn about General Patton I don’t
need to go back to the British defeat of the French in North America,
I don’t need to hear about the American rebellion, I don’t need
to hear about the historical causes of the US civil war. I want to
know about General Patton. If I want the rest I’ll buy another
book.

This is a well written book, very
well researched and presented; it’s just more about Japanese
history then Japanese swordsmen. If you have an interest in Japanese
history of this period, you will certainly love the book, if you pick
it up hoping to get great detail about specific swordsmen, you will
be greatly disappointed.